1. The Smile Curve and a tail of three companies

1.2 The Smile Curve

Source: Baldwin et al. (2014) https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/events/14121101/pdf/baldwin.pdf

1.2 A tail of three companies

Tanin (Thailand)
- Established: 1946 (electronics from 1960s)
- Products: radio, television, …
- Out of business in latter half of 1990s
  
  Source: Putthiwanit (2014) https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/NCRJ/article/download/27704/23805/61129

Sumsung (South Korea)
- Established in 1938 (electronics from 1960s)
- Products: television, smart phones, …
- Became a major in 21st century
  
  Source: Britanica https://www.samsung.com/us/about-us/leadership-and-mission/heritage/

Pensonic (Malaysia)
- Established in 1965 (electronics from 1980s)
- Products: lightning, refrigerator…
- Major local and (regional) brand
  
  Source: Company’s history https://www.pensonic.com/

2. MNE-led industrialzation made possible with fragmentation

2.1 Decreasing transport, communication costs and unbundling of economic activities

Source: Baldwin (20011). Images/icons are from wikimedia commons. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w17716/w17716.pdf

2.2 Fragmention and MNE-led industrialization

Source: Kimura and Obashi (2011) https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/156175/adbi-wp320.pdf

3. What MNE can and cannot do?

Providing large scale empoloyment -> push up the bottom
Industrialization? but that is not a mission of private companies